Statue of Liberty

                        Statue of Liberty                                                   Craig Teichen

hey, little lady ... come on down from yourself! ... why don’t you meet me

at Harry’s?

this way to the bar -->        \_/   (_)   \/    vodka      gin    scotch

not that the drinks will be on me

but ... the way you wear your liberty …

I think you could be a star

we could dance the night away in Harlem

or swim across the bay

and take a turn on the New Jersey turnpike

but that would give us away …

                        the way any two people could have fun …

we could walk all over the New York City streets and into the setting

sun …

all of America holds to you like a child!

what more can I say … or even here plead?

just step off that high pedestal of stone with me

and cool your feet in the blue waters of the New York City Harbor

in you, that wrought-iron pylon || that is this city’s hedge against your

escape

now have you ever thought that you could be a million of us working folk

standing up to rape??

                                                ***

how's the weather about your head?

sailing in your harbor a “go”?

can I turn to the Times for a story:

Here Lies on Your Brow the Snow?

O woman! … I have been to work a thousand times and have suffered

from lack of respect

been hit by all the traffic at the lights

have felt here the noose around my neck

how lovely are all of the sights! …

just take off that damned smock, will you!? 

confront your freedom!

people collect at your feet, curious,

peer out of your crown     \\___//

until they are your headache … even your thoughts … downtow

smile … :o) … why don'tcha? … O come on!

is your belief all corporate?                                       

The New York Times?

a salon?

                                    ***

It’s summer!

there are men crawling all over your body like ants

putting off gravity by these scaffolds at your sides

applying their mascara (soap & bubbles) to your visage …

hey … Lady … you have earned the right to vote

finally, besides

just sit down here with me and have a little vermouth

            along with some pride

            even in my middle-age I feel like some enchanted youth

the coming and going of traffic, the subway that I ride …

                                    ***

no ... you are chained to your liberty … in a manner of speaking

in all these robes

holding as you do to your lit torch high in the sky

acting, I'd say, a little chaste …

(I know that in American factories they turn out factory workers like

assembly line parts)

at your feet is the poem read in haste

for always it is America! … it is us!

as plain to me as it is to anyone:  the words of *Emma Lazarus

clinging to you as the snow clings to you all winter long

even as you blurt it out to the masses … the work-weary throng

you will never let go!  counting down in time to your launch

the weather perfect … O Miss Madam Liberty!

                                                            ***

            were I to make love to you ... I’d come by boat and scale your thighs

            and imagine myself at your lips

            your legacy ... I have to say, my dear sweet woman hero … a steady

            stream of ships …

            like all those workers who seem to be solicitously grooming you

            I’d look you straight in the eye

grab hold like rope the braids of your hair

.           and whisper sweet nothings to you, also:

"of the rabble multitude - be aware!"

"Protect thy commerce in thy bay"                

                                     - not I but those in power would say

                                                            ***

I know that boats leave Battery Park every hour or so …

the crowds arriving at your feet …

to think that they are this curious, this forthright

after having gone down for so long (and in so large a number)

one particularly narrowing street

                                this way ====== >   now, turn left here   ||

                                                                                                 \/

                                                                                     smile :o)     

                                                                                       ||

                                                                                       \/

                                                               ====> no, stop! … learn a hard lesson in

                                                                                   trust … okay, go  ===>

I have seen the crowds at Macy’s always in their lockstep --> one! two!

three! mode of consumption

by foot, by car, consume, consume

I have seen the exploding ball fall from the lights in Times Square every

New Year's Eve

and big business march off into the hinterland (which means some other         country) to find the cheapest labor which is to say to get around

the law because nobody's there to watch or care

                                    ***

O Dear Madam Sweet Liberty! …

            just go wild over your crown of thorns!  they’re a gift!

break free

from the shackles of your liberty!

walk down Wall Street right onto the trading room floor!

the government you stand for is officially hard at work trying to prove us

all a crime!

and you in your own perspicacious way know that the politicos that

represent us (let’s not kid ourselves) are all full of rhyme …

contemplate something imaginative in the boardrooms of America! 

blow out the candles with a hush!

practice the lullaby of our years!

and by 8:00 the next morning all of our rush

and on the highway of our lives all of our fears …

                                                            ***

let’s just get married!

spend a honeymoon this conjugal

somewhere in these fifty United States!

are you free to spend your money?  free to spend your freedom?

how liberated are you ... or frugal?

maybe we are like two creatures (i.e., voters) in a cage

maybe there are two halves of America we'll have to engage

                        maybe ... hey … look …

let's take a walk, I mean a real walk across America

you know ... there before the crowds who are either on the street or on the

factory assembly line who you think would recognize you

to see you there ... blissfully cooling off in the bay

315 ft. above a plaque of poetry and perhaps enjoying the weather this 

fine day

                                                            ***

            you are the most unliberated gal I have ever met!

            yes, you, my dear, holding high

your torch of liberty every Fourth of July

            working up a sweat

you need a little suffrage across the globe ... regally your voice in high       

register

and insofar as your range ...

well … in and of itself, placed on a coin, you dear, sweet liberty is

what we might consider:

a medium of exchange

for as many battles as this land has scars

consider how, my dear, we have won all of our rights on Mars

even if this has been deemed a little too soon

and we have kicked around Congress like a football the moon

            just consider how we attend to you

there in the harbor

before your blue waters, yourself in resplendent pose

the gem of the Atlantic

summed up on a postcard of yourself available on any downtown corner

stand

            O my dear, sweet woman hero, how you represent liberty, dear, sweet

            liberty in this illimitable land!

                                    ***

I love you!

even if you really are working hard for us

I should say, Dear Madam, step across America!

walk slowly over the wheat fields of Hope, Gladness & Despair

sift through all of God’s corn with your fingers as you would so regally

your hair

take a giant leap from industrial St. Louis to the desert’s Salt Lake

where converge several lesser known rivers for a little coffee break 

and where you’ll find the Salt Flats that fortnightly so eerily “put on” the

moon

and here the actor still:  Salt Lake City, a lagoon

until you have come to the edge of a continent - California - a little brash

a little out of breath, a little hopeful

sipping wine in Sausolito, quaffing down coolers in the cold bay of the

Pacific

dreaming, dreaming ...

until now what are you? ... half-lady, half-canvas?

a brush stroke to your lips? …part sky up above?

with what man or woman are you in love?

can we give the artist a name?

is your liberty just a game?

the hope you hold high, a flame?

can we walk together the same?

is our right to be free here a game?

is our right to be free just a game?

*Emma Lazarus - (b 1849 – d 1887) American poet and prose writer,

author of “The New Colossus” sonnet inscribed on a memorial tablet

at the base of the Statue of Liberty, best known for the closing lines:

        “Give me your tired, your poor,

          Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

                      The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,

                      Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost, to me,

                      I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Emma Lazarus was 34 years old when, in late October of 1883, she was

approached by the American Committee on the Statue of Liberty to write

a poem, to be auctioned off at the committee’s Art Exhibition Benefit in

New York City in early December of that year.  Money raised from the

event would help defray the cost of the Statue’s pedestal.  Emma submitted

her poem on November 2^nd, having visited New York City's Ward’s Island

many times previous and drawn public attention to the wretched conditions

of recent Jewish immigrants there - victims of Czarist Russia’s pogroms. 

The plight of immigrants on Ward’s Island was quite ugly - disease was

rampant and plumbing was virtually nonexistent - not exactly America at

her best - "give me your huddled masses".  Our country has not been

altogether friendly to the idea of a melting pot.  Its contents remains to this

day in colloidal suspension.

Emma Lazarus died of cancer in November of 1887 at the age of 38.  She

never saw the statue on Bedloe’s Island (now Liberty Island):  Liberty

Enlightening the World.  Her poem was largely forgotten until a surviving

friend unearthed it in an old text in a bookstore circa 1901.  The friend,

with the aid of another, had the sonnet inscribed on a large bronze tablet

and presented to the army post command on Bedloe’s Island on May 6^th,

1903 and thereafter put on display on the inside of Liberty’s pedestal.  It

wasn’t until the 1930’s, however, that the poem gained popularity (through

Hollywood movies) - some fifty years after its author’s death.  It is now a

celebrated piece of Americana.